Distributed Leadership Matters

The benefits of distributed leadership are yours with this research-based change process. Distributed leadership—engaging the many rather than the few in school improvement—has long been a promising theory. It’s time to make it a reality. This book shows why harnessing educators’ collective expertise leads to better student outcomes, and details the collaborative processes to make distributed leadership happen. Insights include: How to translate the research on distributed leadership into tangible results for your school Methods for building the social capital necessary for sustainable institutional change How to distribute leadership widely and wisely through professional collaboration

Alma Harris The ?eld of school leadership is currently preoccupied with the idea of distributed leadership. Few ideas, it seems, have provoked as much attention, debate and c- troversy. Whatever your position on distributed leadership, and you cannot fail to have one, it is irrefutable that distributed leadership has become the leadership idea of the moment. Yet, it is an idea that can be traced back as far as the mid 20s and possibly earlier. So why the interest? Part of the answer can be found in a move away from theorizing and empirical enquiry focused on the single leader. This shift has undoubtedly been fuelled by structural changes, within schools and across school systems that have resulted in - ternative models or forms of leadership practice. Evidence highlights how those - cupying formal leadership positions are increasingly recognizing the limitations of existing structural arrangements to secure organizational growth and transformation (Fullan et al. , 2007; Harris et al. , 2008; Chapman et al. , 2008). As a consequence, many heads and principals are actively restructuring, realigning and redesigning leadership practice in their school (Harris, 2008). While the terminology to describe such changes varies, the core principle is one of extending or sharing leadership practice. While scholars have long argued for the need to move beyond those at the top of organizations in order to examine leadership (Barnard, 1968; Katz and Kahn, 1966) until relatively recently, much of the school leadership literature has tended tofocusupontheheadortheprincipal.

Distributed leadership has become an important term for educational policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in the United States and around the world, but there is much diversity in how the term is understood. Some use it as a synonym for democratic or participative leadership. This book examines what it means to take a distributed perspective based on extensive research and a rich theoretical perspective developed by experts in the field. Including numerous case studies of individual schools and providing empirically based accounts of school settings using a distributed perspective, this thorough volume: Explores how a distributed perspective is different from other frameworks for thinking about leadership. Provides clear examples of how taking a distributed perspective can help researchers understand and connect more directly to leadership practice. Illustrates how the day-to-day practice of leadership is an important line of inquiry for scholars and for those interested in improving school leadership.

James Spillane, the leading expert in Distributed Leadership, shows how leadership happens in everyday practices in schools, through formal routines and informal interactions. He examines the distribution of leadership among administrators, specialists, and teachers in the school, and explains the ways in which leadership practice is stretched over leaders, followers, and aspects of the situation, including routines and tools of various sorts in the organization such as memos, scheduling procedures, and evaluation protocols. This book is a volume in the Jossey-Bass Leadership Library in Education—a series designed to meet the demand for new ideas and insights about leadership in schools.

Tomorrow’s schools will need new forms of leadership. The old hierarchical models of leadership simply do not fit any longer. We need to develop new leaders at all levels of the system if we are serious about sustaining improvement and change. But, how do we go about this? The book focuses on the why, how and what of distributed leadership by offering a practical insight into what it looks like in schools. It argues that our new system leaders are already in schools and that the main challenge is to develop them and maximise their collective capacity to make a difference. Drawing on the ‘Developing Leaders Programme’, which aimed to develop young leaders in schools, it provides practical examples and case-study evidence of distributed leadership in action. The main aims of the book are to: provide a clear account of more widely distributed leadership offer evidence about its positive impact on organisational and individual learning give case-study exemplars and practical illustrations of how it works in practice. The book also considers the leadership of networks and the new forms of partnership schools are engaged in. It looks at how lateral capacity is built and the part distributed leadership plays in generating leadership capacity between schools. It will be of interest to headteachers, aspiring school leaders, teachers and educational professionals.

School District Leadership Matters challenges policy makers, administrators, and academics in the field of educational leadership to reassess their traditional approaches to learning, working, and planning. The authors believe that government restructuring, standards-based reforms, and centrally imposed strategic planning have been painfully ineffective. As a consequence, student learning has become increasingly superficial and inauthentic. This book bridges the traditional divide between the generalizations of social science theory on the one hand and the world of educational practice on the other. It argues that a more promising approach to education reform is through effective school district leadership. Sheppard, Brown and Dibbon draw on their collective experience both as educational leaders and researchers of leadership, having spent five years researching and working in one school district. Here, they show how a district superintendent can successfully navigate the paradoxes and challenges of facilitating collaborative leadership in a school district with a traditionally hierarchical organizational structure. As a conclusion to their work, the authors highlight what they call five ‘recognitions’ that deepen readers’ understanding of school district leadership. They illuminate, too, ways that senior level practitioners can apply theory to practice in order to break down the traditional hierarchical bureaucracies that inhibit learning, and create professional learning communities. School District Leadership Matters urges researchers, graduate students, practitioners, and policymakers to focus on improving authentic learning for all students and argues that the best hope rests with effective school district leadership. This empirically-based yet practical book provides new insights and questions for academic researchers and will inspire policy makers and practitioners to imagine what could be and to work towards it.

The first International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration (Leithwood et al.) was published in 1996 and quickly became something of a best seller for reference works within education. Such success, we suggest, was at least partly due to the unprecedented global waves of concern for improving schools launched in the mid 1980's, combined with a widespread belief in leadership as the single most powerful contribution to such improvement. The roots of this belief can be found in evidence produced by the early "effective schools" research, although there is a "romance" with leadership! as an explanation for success in many non-school enterprises, as well. During the two-year period during which this current handbook was being written, activity in the realms of school leadership, school improvement, and leadership development gained further momentum. The English government created its new National College of School Leadership, and several Asian nations announced new initiatives in leadership selection, preparation, and development.